A fifteen-year-old boy has become Liberia’s first Ebola victim since the country was triumphantly declared free of the disease for the second time in as many months.

Nathan Gbotoe tested positive for the deadly disease last week in a hospital in Paynesville, a district in the capital Monrovia. By Monday the teenager had succumbed to the illness.

Liberia was one of the worst affected by the latest Ebola outbreak: since December 2013 more than 4,800 people died after contracting the disease in a country that was ill-equipped to combat the huge number of infected.

On 9 May and 3 September experts declared the country Ebola-free, only to have the disease return with the death of a 17-year-old boy and girl in July.

A 10-year-old boy has been diagnosed with Ebola in Liberia almost three months after the country was declared officially free of the virus.

The case means that a new outbreak will be formally declared in the West African nation, which has already seen thousands of deaths.

The boy is being treated at a centre on the outskirts of the capital Monrovia, health officials said. 

Dr Francis Kateh, the chief medical officer and acting head of the Ebola case management system, said the child, who lives in the eastern Paynesville district of Monrovia, was put into isolation late on Thursday.

“Yes, yes, you can say confirmed,” he said, when asked if the illness was definitely Ebola.

Liberia was first  http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/ebola-virus-liberia-declared-free-of-the-disease-after-worst-outbreak-in-history-killed-4700-10238371.html - declared Ebola-free on 9 May this year  but a resurgence of the disease in late June affected four people, killing two.

After the mandatory 42 days with all patients testing negative, the World Health Organisation gave the country the all-clear once again on 3 September and a three-month period of heightened surveillance started.

Liberia has seen more than 10,600 cases of Ebola since the breakout started in early 2014, with 4,808 people dying of the disease.